Freedom of Information Act 2000 Request

Convictions rates of all offences involving 18-24 year olds.

Request

I am interested in finding the following information:

a) What is the 2018 conviction rate of all offences involving *18-24 year olds?*

b) Of this information, what is the breakdown of offence type?

Response

On the 26 July 2019 you clarified the word ‘involving’ to mean ‘How many 18-24 year olds were convicted in 2018?’

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) does not hold a central record of all of the offences that 18-24 year olds were convicted of during 2018 as described in part a).

In order to establish each of the offences that were committed, it would be necessary to manually examine all cases in respect of convicted individuals between the ages of 18 and 24 during 2018. As an indication of the work this would involve there were convictions in respect of 83,847 defendants within the described age range.

Section 12(1) of the FOI Act means public authorities are not obliged to comply with a request for information if it estimates the cost of complying would exceed the appropriate limit. The appropriate limit for central government it is set at £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days determining whether the department holds the information, and locating, retrieving and extracting the information.

We believe that the cost of reviewing cases in respect of 83,847 defendants would exceed the appropriate limit. Consequently, we are not obliged to comply with part a) of your request. As a result we are therefore unable to provide a breakdown of the type of offences, as requested in part b). The CPS holds data relating to ‘Principle Offence Categories.’ The most serious offence that a defendant is charged with, at the point of finalisation, determines the Principle Offence Category recorded. A record of the Principle Offence Category recorded against each defendant aged between 18 and 24, convicted during 2018, is held by the CPS. Information relating to the data can be requested via a new Freedom of Information request however, any information is subject to any exemptions under the FoIA that may apply.

Information Management Unit 020 3357 0899 IMU@cps.gov.uk